I’m Hannah. I was given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder quite a long time ago. I was told I had a lifelong, severe and enduring mental illness, caused by a pre-existing imbalance in my brain chemistry. I would have to take medication to help with this imbalance for the rest of my life.

This is a blog that I wrote from September 2013 onwards. I’ve posted nothing since mid 2015, which turned out to be the starting point for my rapid physical decline. I’ve had five major operations since then, three of them as emergencies; all of them the result of severe osteoarthritis. It has spread like wildfire through my joints and my spine, and has caused serious compression of my spinal cord three times. I now have cervical spondylitis and myelopathy.